Secret Agent Man
by Emerald1
Summary: In their line of work, midnight phone calls are never good. Written for the H/C Bingo prompt - Secret Identity. Two chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Midnight phone calls from unknown numbers rarely led to good things, so Gibbs was already slipping his shoes back on as he flipped open his phone. "Yeah, Gibbs."

 _Is this Leroy Jethro Gibbs?_

Full legal name, nope, not good at all At least he was still dressed. Tucking his phone under his chin, Gibbs shoved his weapon into his holster and clipped it onto his belt. "Yeah, what's happened?"

 _This is Holy Cross Hospital. You're listed as the emergency contact for a Timothy McGee and he's been brought into the emergency department with serious injuries._

"I'm on my way." As soon as the call ended, Gibbs was out the door.

Luckily traffic was lighter at this time of night and he made it to the hospital parking lot in under thirty minutes. He had his badge out as he approached the desk. "One of my men was brought in here, Special Agent Timothy McGee. I'm Gibbs, somebody from here called me."

The young man at the desk picked up the phone, punching only one number. "Your contact person for the DV victim is here."

Gibbs inhaled sharply at that. Something had gone very wrong for McGee in the last few hours. He was escorted through the maze of hallways to find McGee sitting up on an exam table, arguing with both a doctor and a detective.

"No, I'm not pressing charges and I'm not staying here. That's final, I'm not discussing it any further."

"McGee?"

Green eyes met him, filled with shame and embarrassment, before dropping. "Hey, Boss, sorry they called you."

Ignoring the apology, Gibbs stepped up to the exam table and tilted Tim's face up to better look at him. A nasty bruise covered most of the side of his face, a freshly stitched gash along the hairline, making Gibbs wince. Recognizing the stubborn set of McGee's jaw, he directed his question to the doctor. "How bad?"

"You're his medical proxy, right?"

"Yeah."

The doctor started talking fast, probably to get the information out before McGee could verbally withdraw the proxy. "Mild concussion, seven stitches to the head, some cracked ribs, a fractured ankle bone, lots of bruising. Other than the head, all the injuries seem to have come from the same weapon."

The last comment wasn't exactly medical, but it, combined with McGee's refusal to cooperate with the police, gave Gibbs the understanding why the hospital considered him a victim of domestic violence. He knew he'd have to tread lightly, not a trait his team knew him for. "Anyone come in with him?"

"Whoever dropped him off didn't stick around, didn't even help him get inside." The doctor was watching McGee carefully as he spoke. "Medically, we don't actually need to admit him, but he does need someone to keep an eye on him for the next forty-eight hours, watch for late developing complications of the concussion. If his home situation isn't safe, then I don't feel comfortable in releasing him."

Gibbs understood what they were asking. "It's okay, I've got him."

"Excellent. We're going to take one last set of x-rays, make sure that ankle is properly set, then he's all yours."

McGee was wheeled out of the room. Gibbs wasn't sure if the new x-rays were medically necessary or if the doctor was giving him a chance to talk to the detective that McGee was refusing to cooperate with. Either way, Gibbs took the opportunity. "Tell me what you've got."

"Kid won't talk to me. Just said that no charges would be filed and my help wasn't needed. If he were unconscious, I'd be able to go kick in the door at his place and get some answers, but he's been damned careful to make sure I didn't have any probable cause. My hands are tied."

"Luckily mine aren't." They exchanged cards and Gibbs started planning on how to get through to his recalcitrant man.

-NCIS-

Gibbs waited until they were several blocks away from the hospital. "I assume I'm not taking you back to your apartment?"

Tim was staring out the side window and didn't turn around. "A motel is fine, Boss."

Yeah, he didn't think so. Without saying anything else, Gibbs got on the freeway and headed back to his house in Virginia. Tim didn't argue and was very placid as Gibbs led him into the house and got him laying down on the sofa, his leg elevated and his crutches leaning up against the wall. "I'll get you some water so you can take your pain pills."

"That's not-"

Gibbs interrupted, not wanting to argue. "Not open to discussion, McGee. I was standing right there when you got your discharge instructions."

Stepping inside the kitchen, Gibbs turned the water on, then kept going until he was partially down the basement stairs before pulling out his phone. It rang twice before a sleepy voice answered.

 _Yeah, Boss, we get a call-out?_

"DiNozzo, need you to get over to McGee's apartment. He's going to be staying with me for a while, so he's going to need clothes, his kit, whatever else you think you should grab."

 _Umm, what's going on? Is there a reason why I'm waking Delilah up at four in the morning to pack up her boyfriend's stuff?_

Gibbs hoped that he was jumping to the wrong conclusion, but his gut told him otherwise. "Don't think she'll be surprised, but it'll be interesting to see what she has to say."

 _McGee okay?_

Gibbs could tell that his senior agent was wide awake now. "He will be." Finished, he ended the call and returned to the kitchen for the water.

-NCIS-

"What's going on?" Zoe had tried to go back to sleep once she realized that it wasn't her phone, but Tony's suddenly worried tone had her wide awake. The fact that he was grabbing the first clothes he could reach had her up on her feet, too.

"Something's happened to McGee. I gotta get over to his place."

"What about Delilah?"

"Don't know. Something weird is going on."

Tony may talk about 'the gut', but Zoe's woman's intuition was kicking in. "I'll go with you."

Early morning traffic was just starting, but they still made pretty good time. One of the neighbors was outside McGee's door, pounding on it. "Damn it, turn the music down." In response, the volume went up even higher. Tony and Zoe exchanged looks before he pulled out his badge and held it out.

"It's okay. Go back to your apartment and let us handle this." He waited until the neighbor was back inside before reaching up to knock on the door, then Zoe stopped him.

"Tony, look."

What she was pointing at looked suspiciously like a smear of blood and Tony pulled out his weapon. "Shit." Once they were both in position, weapons ready, he checked the door. It was unlocked and he pushed it open while staying back. "Federal agents, we're coming in."

Clearing the apartment, they found Delilah in the living room, systematically pulling Tim's record collection off the shelf and snapping each one in half. She had the reaching device Tim had bought her so she'd managed to pull down all of the albums except for the ones on the top shelf. Holstering his SIG, Tony rushed over and took the latest casualty from her hands before she could break it.

"Whoa, Wheels, what's going on and how much have you had to drink?"

She grabbed for the record, almost falling out of her chair. "Leave me alone, DiNozzo."

"Can't do that, Delilah. Now, seriously, what's going on? You and McWhiney have a fight?" She laughed at that and Tony used the distraction to move the bottle of scotch out of her reach.

"McWhiney, I like that. Not quite right, though – McLiar, that's better."

"Yeah? So, what did he lie to you about, Delilah? Tell me so that I can kick his ass for you."

That apparently seemed terribly funny to Delilah as she laughed until she was almost giddy. While Tony had her distracted, Zoe gave the apartment a closer look. A federally issued SIG Sauer was on the dining table. She was pretty sure that a DoD analyst wouldn't be issued a weapon, so she was assuming that it was McGee's. It seemed more than strange that he'd left it out like that, especially if he wasn't in the apartment. Suspicious, Zoe used a kitchen towel to pick it up and an empty grocery bag as a makeshift evidence bag.

Getting more worried about the situation she started turning on lights and discovered a bloodstain on the dark carpet. It was quite large by the desk, but the trail continued on toward the door. She caught Tony's eye, then deliberately glanced down at the blood by the desk. His eyes widened in alarm, then he mouthed 'call Gibbs' before turning his attention back to Delilah, who had just become a lot more dangerous in their opinion.

Unlike Tony, she didn't have Gibbs on speed dial so it took her a second to scroll down to his number. At the other end it was answered before the first ring finished.

 _Yeah._

She wasn't quite sure how to ask, especially with an apparent suspect in the next room. "Gibbs, we're at the apartment. Delilah's here and doesn't seem to be injured, but there's a lot of blood on the floor."

 _Yeah._

Okay, he wasn't surprised, but that didn't help her and Tony right now. "Is Tim all right?"

 _Will be._

"Any ideas what happened? What did he do to get her this mad?" Right or wrong question, it got Gibbs moving. She heard him walking, then a door closing.

 _McGee is not capable of doing anything that would have justified this. Figure it out._

The line went dead and she stared at her phone. "Well, that was helpful as hell." Returning to where Tony could see her, all she could do was shrug.

-NCIS-

Tony bit back a curse when Zoe shrugged at him. Apparently the call to Gibbs hadn't been very revealing. Whatever was going on, he'd have to get to the bottom of it the hard way. Delilah was rolling her wheelchair back and forth about a foot and Tony grasped the armrests as he squatted down, forcing her to stop. "So, you and Tim have a fight tonight?"

"A fight? Of course not." She gave a bitter laugh. "He's always so calm and practical, thinks things through forever."

Up until about ten minutes ago, Tony thought that was something the geeky couple had in common. Behind Delilah he saw Zoe slip into the couple's bedroom. "Yeah? What was something he was being practical about?"

"Money!" She spit out the word so harshly that Tony caught himself jerking back. "I wanted us to move to a nice place, like the apartments over by Dupont Circle. But he said no, we weren't going to waste our money renting a place like that. If we moved over there, we had to buy a condo, and to do that, we had to save up enough for a nice big down payment."

Building equity instead of making your landlord richer, Tony could understand that. With their combined income, they'd be able to save up a lot of money while they stayed in Tim's small apartment. He was still trying to figure out what was so bad about it and how he was lying to her, when she started talking again.

"He wanted me on a budget, printed his suggestions out on a spreadsheet even."

"And you didn't like that?"

-NCIS-

Zoe listened to Delilah while she looked around the bedroom. It looked like a cyclone had gone through there, but the only clothes out appeared to be McGee's. Picking up a shirt, she discovered that it had been shredded. Looking further, she realized that every garment piled onto the bed was destroyed. Curious now, after listening to Delilah rant about her new budget, Zoe quietly opened the closet doors. It was still full, but of all women's clothing. Zoe had never been too much into fashion, but she recognized a lot of high-end designer pieces, many with the tags still on them. Whistling under her breath, she found a jacket that cost more than a month's rent at her apartment. Quietly, she called Gibbs back.

"There were problems about money, her spending in particular, and she was mad enough to destroy pretty much everything he owned."

The call ended almost immediately, but Zoe was pretty sure she'd heard a curse word or two before Gibbs slammed his phone shut.

-NCIS-

"He expected me to spend no more than five hundred dollars a month on clothes, Tony. That's like one pair of shoes a month. Said my credit cards had to be paid down, too, and all this time – all this time..."

"All this time, what, Delilah?" There was one thing that he knew about his Probie. The man was beyond conservative with his money. Ever since he'd lost his book money in a hedge fund, McGee had made Gibbs look like a big spender.

"He's rich, Tony. Filthy, stinking rich." She started shaking a piece of paper in his face that she'd had wedged under her hip. Whatever it was, he couldn't read enough of it to tell. "He doesn't need me to pay half of a down payment on some condo, he could buy the whole damned building and never even take out a loan."

"Wait, what?" Tony didn't see how that could be possible. "Okay, yeah, he's probably got more in savings than the average federal employee, but-"

"He won the damned lottery, DiNozzo. This is his annual statement from his accountant. It came in the mail today, so I hacked into the lottery records. He won over twenty-eight million dollars four years ago. He says he loves me, then he watches me pack a lunch to save money while he's sitting on all that cash."

"Holy shit." Tony finally had the print-out in his hand and was looking at it. There were multiple accounts, only listed by number, but the totals at the end were huge. "I can't believe he hid this from all of us."

* * *

 **a/n - I honestly don't hate Delilah, in fact there's times when I really like her, but most of the time their relationship seems so forced. Plus, the powers that be missed a wonderful opportunity with her recovery. Nobody bounces back like that without some sort of struggle.**


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't want to wake McGee, but they had to figure out what was going on before it all blew up in their faces. Besides, it was time for a neuro check. Walking back into the living room with a cup of coffee, he found that McGee was staring at the ceiling, so Gibbs sat on the coffee table. "You and Delilah have a lot of fights about money?"

Tim turned and stared at him as if baffled by the question at first. "Not fights, exactly. She, uh, she's close to out of control with her spending, though."

"How out of control?" Gibbs realized that he was going to get a serious answer when McGee tried to sit up. Gibbs jumped up and helped him shift around, then sat next to him, resting a hand on his back.

"She makes good money. Delilah's high enough up at the DoD that she's making a whole lot more than I'll ever make as an agent. I don't know if it's her way of coping with the bombing or if it was a habit she got into when she was in Dubai and living in company housing, but she has nothing in savings, her credit cards are all maxed out, including the ones she got just a couple of months ago, and most months she's literally down to pennies in her bank account the day before her next paycheck hits.

"Delilah hates the little apartment, but I'm not comfortable with the two of us getting a bigger place until she's got a better handle on things. I thought that maybe if we had a goal, that she'd want to get it under control, so I suggested that we look at buying a bigger place instead of renting, but she had to contribute to the down payment and get her credit under control."

"Sounds fair."

"I thought so. I'm paying for all the rent and utilities right now so that she could get caught up. Tried to help her set up a monthly budget, but that just got me the cold shoulder. She sulks and complains about not spending fifty dollars on food at the office every day, but she's still buying and sneaking in thousands of dollars in clothes every month." Tim started to shake his head, then obviously thought better of it. "She was moody and grumpy about it, but not..."

"Violent?" Gibbs finally put it out there, waiting to see the reaction. Tim just seemed to curl in on himself and Gibbs rubbed his back. "Tell me what happened tonight."

"Yeah, okay. We had the long weekend as soon as the case reports were filed, so I stayed aboard the Yard and got them done...

 _They'd worked late, but the case was done and the paperwork filed. Tim arrived home tired but ready for the three days off they'd earned by solving the case in time. Locking the door and not bothering with any additional lights, he walked to his desk to check the mail and put his SIG Sauer in the lock box._

 _"Delilah, you still up?"_

 _No answer, but it was pretty late and she'd been under a lot of pressure at work so he couldn't blame her for not waiting up for him. There was nothing in the stack of mail that couldn't keep until tomorrow, so Tim pressed his fingers against the bio-metric lock, waiting for the familiar click as his fingerprints registered. Just as it clicked he heard the familiar sound of wheels rolling rapidly toward him._

 _"Hey, you're still..." Pain exploded in his leg as the footrest of her chair slammed hard into his leg, knocking him off-balance. He got a quick glimpse of her furious face as he fell, hitting his head on the corner of his desk._

 _Between the pain, the stars he was seeing and the blood running down into his eyes, it took a minute for his vision to clear, but once it did, Tim was staring down the barrel of his SIG Sauer. "Delilah? Delilah, what's wrong? Please, Sweetheart, don't do this."_

"It... it felt like forever, but then she dropped the gun. Before I could get up, she started running into me again with her chair, kept slamming the footrests into me over and over and screaming at me to get out."

"Shit." He hadn't realized how close he'd come to losing one of his boys tonight. Gibbs's hand stilled, remembering the multiple bruises the doctor had mentioned, along with the cracked ribs. "How did you finally get away?"

"Eventually she backed up, said we were done and to get out. I managed to get up, tried to retrieve my gun, but she went nuts again, so I..."

"Got the hell out of there?"

"Yeah. Not much of an agent, right? Got beat up by a woman in a wheelchair and my service weapon taken away."

"Hey." If there was ever a time for a head slap, now was the time. Unfortunately, his boy had a concussion and more bruises than he'd ever know, so a different approach was needed. "You're talking to the agent that got laid out by a pissed-off wife with a golf club. A suspect would have been different, but that was the woman you loved. I'm not surprised you didn't fight back.

"Besides, it sounds like she blindsided you. DiNozzo and Keates are over there, they've got your SIG, they're getting your clothes and making sure she's calmed down. You're well within your rights to file charges against her, you know."

"I, I can't, Boss. She's..."

Somehow, Gibbs wasn't surprised as he wrapped a supportive arm around Tim's shoulders. "I know."

-NCIS-

"You ready to try and get some more sleep?"

McGee gave a one shouldered shrug. "Don't think I can. Gotta figure out what to do."

"Kick her ass out to the curb and get yourself a restraining order."

"Boss..."

Some fatherly advice was well needed so Gibbs kept his temper in check. "If you're right and this is some sort of delayed reaction to everything that's happened, getting a reality check might be the best thing for her."

"Maybe."

Gibbs wished he'd called Ducky. He was much better at this kind of crap, but Gibbs tried again. "You can't help her until she's ready to help herself, Tim. In the meantime, protecting yourself needs to be your top priority."

"I guess."

"Soon as her office is open, we'll call Rachel, see if she's got some advice for you."

"Yeah, okay." Tim seemed to relax for a bit, then the front door slammed open, startling him. Gibbs, too, if he was willing to admit it. Gibbs jumped to his feet to see Tony storming in. "DiNozzo, what the hell?"

"You lied to her, to all of us. You, of all people, have been lying for years."

"What?" McGee looked baffled and Gibbs had to agree with that sentiment. The kid couldn't lie to save his life, even after all these years on the job.

"Well, the truth's out, McMoneybags."

"Tony, I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

Gibbs watched him closely. McGee was honest when he said that, but then a few seconds later, his eyes widened. DiNozzo saw it, too. "Yeah, that. The lottery you won and never mentioned it to any of us."

That was the last thing Gibbs was expecting and he stared at McGee, wondering how he'd managed to pull this off – and for years, apparently. "Tim?"

"I gave it away."

"What?" Tony dropped down on the sofa, staring. "You just gave away twenty-eight million dollars? Just gave it away, like that?"

"Twenty-eight? Million?" Gibbs couldn't even wrap his mind around that large of a number. "Is he right, McGee? That's something pretty damned big to keep hidden."

"I don't play the lottery."

"Except for that one time that you did – and won."

Even though he was still pissed at Delilah, he could understand Tony's anger. Honesty and trust between teammates was pretty damned important and this was something big. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning, McGee."

"Yeah, yeah, okay." His hand was shaking when he rubbed his forehead and Gibbs felt bad, but dragging this out wasn't going to help in the least. "I was coming back from interviewing a witness, it was hot, I was thirsty, so I stopped at a convenience store for a cold bottle of water. The guy in front of me in line was yelling at the clerk because she'd printed up his lottery tickets wrong. She was pregnant, looked about ready to pop, and he had her in tears. She kept telling him that she had to void out the tickets she'd already printed before she could give him new tickets, or she'd lose her job. It was ten bucks, so I gave it to her so she could finish that transaction and print the new tickets for the jerk."

It was such a McGee thing to do that Gibbs had to smile. He even saw a trace of a smile on Tony's face before Tim started talking again.

"I stuffed the ticket in my wallet and forgot all about them for a couple of months, until I saw the article in the paper about a winning ticket that hadn't been claimed, recognized the picture of the store."

"So you finally dug them out and checked your numbers."

"Yeah. At first I was excited, then I started thinking about all the trouble it would cause."

"The original purchaser would probably sue if he figured it out. Sounds like the kind of guy that would try to cause trouble."

"Exactly, plus the fact that I was on duty when I bought it and I could just imagine what kind of problems that would cause. The money from my book caused me enough troubles, believe me, and this was going to be ten times worse. I almost burned the ticket, then I started thinking about how it could help some people that really needed the help."

"That's when you decided to give it away?"

McGee gave a nod. "I had a lawyer and an accountant set it up so that the ticket was claimed by a non-profit we set up and from there, every year it gets divided up between whatever charities we've chosen."

"Wow, Tim, that's..." looking a little embarrassed by his outburst, Tony gave his partner a sideways hug. "That's really cool. So, is it different charities every year, or what?"

"Pretty much. Most of them have something to do with helping vets and their families. Semper Fi is a regular. Of all the charities that help wounded vets, they've got the lowest administrative costs. We also cover scholarships for some surviving spouses, provide housing vouchers to get homeless vets off the street, things like that. There's some women's shelters, too, and one charity that helps kids that age out of foster care. We don't cover a hundred percent of what a charity needs, but enough to make a real difference." He stopped and took a deep breath. "There's a few people that we help directly. The clerk at the convenience store was on the run from an abusive boyfriend, so we got her relocated someplace safe that first year and also a scholarship for Sharon Bellows' daughter."

That got a sharp gasp from DiNozzo. Gibbs remembered too, the young teen who was repeatedly raped by her mother's prison guard. "You did good, Probie."

"Thanks, Tony."

"So how many times has a case influenced what charities you support or start?"

Gibbs was also interested; Tony had a very good question.

"Sometimes justice isn't quite enough." McGee smiled for a moment, then turned serious. "So, how did Delilah find out?"

Tony handed him a piece of crumpled paper. "She opened your mail, found this from your accountant, then started hacking. She's convinced that you're sitting on all that money and making her beg for scraps. Zoe saw that pile of designer clothes and wasn't convinced. Compulsive shopper?"

"Yeah, I think it's her way of coping with everything she's gone through, but it's gotten really out of control. She kept talking about how hard it was to find clothes that fit good for in a wheelchair and that made sense at first. I, umm, I found a company that had an entire line of clothing for people in chairs and I bought pretty much their entire women's line for her birthday last month, but she wouldn't even try any of them on."

Tony's phone rang and he listened for a moment before thanking the person at the other end and ending the call. "That was Zoe. Delilah is calming down, or actually sobering up. She's realizing what she did and is pretty upset."

"I should-" McGee tried to get up, but Gibbs pushed him back down

"Like hell, McGee. She damn near killed you tonight. She gets herself help or you go get that restraining order."

Tim looked like he was going to argue, but Gibbs just glared at him until he gave in. "At least let me call her parents so they can get her help."

"Fine."

Gibbs gave Tony the look and the two of them went into the kitchen to give McGee some privacy while he arranged help for Delilah with her parents. "How bad is it over there? Keates said that she destroyed almost everything McGee had."

"Yeah. She was breaking his album collection in half one by one when we got there. I guess his entire wardrobe is now a bunch of rags, too."

That's what he'd been afraid of. "What a mess."

"No kidding. Zoe is taking a personal day tomorrow or," Tony glanced down at his watch, "actually today, so Delilah won't be alone."

"Appreciate that, sure McGee does too. You okay with him now?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. She made it sound like he was sitting on these piles of money, laughing at the rest of us and that reminded me of way too many relatives I have. Don't worry, I'll find a way to make it up to him."

"That's easy, just keep his secret."

-NCIS-

"Is McGee coming in today?"

Bishop's innocent question almost caught Tony off-guard. It had been impossible to keep everything hidden, but they'd managed to keep it down to just her, Abby and the Director and only the Director heard the entire story. Bishop obviously knew there was more to what had happened than what she'd been told and he had to give her props for not prying much.

"Umm, yeah, after his doctor's appointment."

"He's had a doctor's appointment almost every day for the last two weeks."

She was right; however, all but one of the appointments had been with Rachel, or as Tony still called her – Dr. Kate's Sister. Sessions on his own, sessions with he and Delilah, and then, like today, sessions with Delilah and her parents. As he understood it, her mother, a retired accountant, had been reviewing Delilah's spending habits and how they'd changed since the bombing and today's appointment was some sort of intervention in hopes of halting her downward spiral.

Gibbs arrived back from upstairs, ending the conversation and they returned to their cold cases until the elevator dinged, signaling the arrival of someone in the bullpen. All three members of the team looked up to see McGee hobbling toward them. The visible bruises were now a sickly mix of green and yellow and he no longer needed crutches, even though the orthopedic boot would be on his leg for another month. It had been a slow process and today he looked especially tired, his face pinched and pale.

Tony jumped to his feet, then glanced at Bishop. She seemed to understand, her voice overly perky. "If I re-read this file one more time my eyeballs are going to start bleeding, so I need coffee. Anybody want me to bring them back some?"

His eyes didn't move from McGee's face. "Yeah, Bishop that would be great." Finally he looked at her, a deeper meaning in the rest of his words. "Thanks, appreciate it."

She nodded and picked up her bag. "I might grab some sandwiches for all of us, too. Yesterday they ran out of the ones I like."

Once she was gone, Tony went over to sit on the corner of McGee's desk and Gibbs silently joined them. "How'd it go, buddy?"

"Rough, but she's finally agreed that she needs help."

"That's good, right?"

"Yeah." Despite his words, Tim didn't look very happy. "She's, umm, going to move back home with her parents for a while. Rachel's got her set up with a therapist back there."

Tony didn't know how to respond to that. Before all this had happened, he'd really liked Delilah, liked seeing his best friend happy, and he understood how much Tim loved her and wanted everything back to normal. Gibbs, he knew, considered the relationship over the moment she attacked Tim, and Tony understood that, too. The man was not known for giving second chances to someone that hurt family and Tim was family. "She's getting the help she needs, that's the most important thing, right?"

Tim gave a nod before turning to look at Gibbs. "Her folks are helping her move out of the apartment next weekend and getting the carpet cleaned so I can move back in any time after that."

"No rush, McGee. You can't drive until you're out of that boot, and you're a better cook than I am so stay as long as you like."

Tony had to make his probie smile. Hey, I never got an offer like that." Gibbs apparently saw what he was doing and went along with it.

"Yeah, well, he's housebroken, DiNozzo."

That got the smile they were both looking for. "Thanks, Boss. Lease expires next month so maybe I'll start looking for another apartment, get a fresh start."

"Fresh start sounds good, McGee, real good."

"Speaking of fresh starts," Tony used Bishop's absence to pull out the newspaper article he'd found that morning about a private charity that had stepped in to help the family from a case a few weeks prior. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?"

"Not a clue." But, for the first time in weeks, Tim was smiling when he said it.

Tony smiled, too. "Thanks, man."


End file.
